The psychoanalyst W.R. Bion emphasized the need to construct models to aid reflection on the complexity of analytic interaction. Inspired by his example, this program explores elements of a “listening grid” that an analyst might use to help reflect upon the “data” of a session. Eaton will present three short lectures aimed at stimulating discussion on the complexity of the listening process. These lectures will be titled “Gathering the Data of a Session”; “The Self and its Circumstances”; and “Listening as an Open Gate”.  Each lecture offers a window into the task of observing and describing an analytic process as well as wrestling with challenging questions about what an analyst selects to bring to a patient’s attention as a session unfolds. Rooted in the work of Klein, Bion, Meltzer and contemporary writers like Ogden, Grotstein, and Ferro, the program will focus on an evolving working model to create a space for thinking together about forms of analytic listening.

Jeffrey L. Eaton is a graduate and faculty member of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and a member of the IPA. He received the Frances Tustin Memorial Lecture Prize in 2006 and has been the Beta Rank Memorial Lecturer at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society, the Margaret Jarvie Memorial Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, and has lectured at the Tavistock Center London. He has been a frequent speaker at the International Frances Tustin Trust meetings as well as at International Bion meetings. In 2017 he was the International Guest Lecturer of the Australian Psychoanalytic Society in Melbourne.

Eaton provides psychotherapy and psychoanalysis to children and adults and consultation to therapists and analysts around the world. He is the author of A Fruitful Harvest: Essays after Bion, and several chapters in edited collections. Information about his writing and practice can be found at www.jleaton.com and at his Amazon author page.